I tie a belt around my waist
and pull its buckle tight
then turn away – a pretty prince,
imperial – and slight!
I walk into my kingdom
deliberate and cold,
showing off the new and gorgeous
purple robe I own.
But then a subject comes to call
and asks me to the Ball;
supposing I would dance and smile
(I so want to recoil)
but when they stoop and plead with me,
grovel, I say yes
and walk along my destiny
to the colour of her dress.
Although I have a body,
no body I will be;
freedom from the tension of
a soul and vessel – me
but every body’s some body;
- a starlet or a hog
is walking through another day
and barking like a dog.
A dream recedes, unrealized.
Pillow clouds
race below the sky;
dip, evade, outwhisp themselves,
fan out, turn round
and coalesce
into a roof of grey.
More constant than the dreamer
who is a butterfly!
Ah, the sound
came falling down
into a bowl
I mixed it round
with love and soul
turned up the heat
with sugar sweet
- a lemon cake
was handed round
though overbaked
it fed a crowd
and Ah the sound
came falling down.
My story is deep rivulets and currents.
Never will you know me: desert
blue and silver sand untwigged me.
I have no sap left for insects;
no pith will ooze your palm. No.
I toppled long ago and now you rest
soft meat here – talk and chew, talk, chew;
not knowing what you do.
Lay hands on me and feel my deeper scars
fleshed with aeons – dead – and yet,
like all illuminated souls,
waiting for my sea of resurrection.
for music. He
can’t distinguish
a minim from a
quaver, or a
minor seventh
from the major.
Although he does
know how to fashion
many notes
with his fingers;
dance with them as
a cat or dervish.
